A Man in the Open Part 6

CHAPTER V

THE BURNING BUSH

Among the Indians, before a boy gets rated warrior, he goes alone afoot, naked, starvin', thirsty, way off to the back side of the desert. Thar he just waits, suns, weeks, maybe a whole moon, till the Big Spirit happens to catch his eye. Then the Big Spirit shows him a stick, or a stone, or any sort of triflin' common thing, which is to be his medicine, his wampum, the charm which guards him, hunting, or in war.

There's the ordeal, too, by torture, done in the medicine lodge, so all the chiefs can see he's fit for bearin' arms. He's given the war-path secret, taking his rank as a man.

Among them Bible Indians you'll remember a feller called Moses, out at the back side of the desert, seen the Big Spirit in a burning bush.

Later his tribe set up a medicine lodge, and the hull story's mighty natural.

This Indian life explains a lot to men like me, raised ignorant, never grown-up--or at least not to hurt. I had the ordeal by torture, which done me good, and I been whar Moses went, and the Lord Christ too, seeking the medicine of the Almighty Father.

For as I'd broken ponies for their good till they got peaceful, so I was broke myself. Bein' full of pride an' sin as a young horse, so I was tamed until He reckoned me worth pasturage. Before then I'd work hard--yes, for pride. A bucking horse throws miles, sheer waste into the air, miles better pulled out straight the way you're goin'. I work for service, now.

You know when you've been in trouble, how you swing back thinking of edged words which would have cut, and dirty actions that you wish you'd done. These devils has got to go if you'd keep your manhood, harder to beat out than a talky woman, and even the littlest of them puts up a heap big fight. But when the last is killed, there's room for peace.

Sloth walks in front of trouble, peace follows after. Water is nothing till you thirst, rest nothing till you're weary, calm nothing till you've faced the storm, peace nothing until after war. But peace is like the water after thirst, rest when you're weary, calm after storm, earnings of warriors only. Many find peace in death, only a few in life, and I found peace thar in the wilderness, the very medicine of torn souls, fresh from the hand of the Almighty Father.

And I found wealth. Seems there's many persons mistaking dollars for some sort of wealth. I've had a few at times by way of samples, the things which you're apt to be selfish with, or give away to buy self-righteousness. Reckoning with them projuces the feeling called poverty. They're the very stuff and substance of meanness, and no man walks straight-loaded. Dollars gets lost, or throwed away, or left to your next of kin, but they're not a good and lasting possession. I like 'em, too.

What's the good and lasting possession, the real wealth? Times I've been down in civilization, meeting folks who'd been rusting and rotting on one spot, from a while or so to a long lifetime, aye, and proud to boast in long decaying. They'd good memory, but nothing to remember. They're handy enough as purses if they were filled with coin. But where they're poor I'm rich, with wealth of memories, some good, some bad, all real.

In coin like "seen" and "known" and "done" I'm millionaire. Ah, yes, but times I wisht that I could part with things I've "lived" to help beginners, and keep moths out of candles. Things lived ain't current coin to be given, sold, lost, thrown, aye, or bequeathed. My body's meat and bones, my soul's the life I've lived, and mine until I square accounts with G.o.d. Queer reckoning that last. I guess He'll have to laugh, and He who made all life plumb full of humor, is due to enjoy some things He'll have to punish.

I found peace, I found wealth, yes, and found something more thar in the wilderness. Sweet as the cactus forest in blossom down Salt River is that big memory.

It was after I'd found the things of happy solitude. I'd gone to work then for the Bar Y outfit, breaking the Lightning colts. We was out a few weeks from home, taking an outfit of ponies as far as the Mesa Abaho, and one night camped at the very rim-rock of the Grand Canon. The Navajo Indians was peevish, the camp dry, gra.s.s scant, herd in a raffish mood, and night come sudden.

I'd just relieved a man to get his supper, and rode herd wide alert. I scented the camp smoke, saw the spark of fire glow on the boys at rest, and heard their peaceful talk hushed in the big night. They seemed such triflin' critters full of fuss since dawn, so small as insects at the edge of nothin', while for miles beneath us that old, old wolfy Colorado River was playing the Grand Canon like a fiddler plays a fiddle. But the river in the canon seemed no more than a trickle in a crack, hushed by the night, while overheard the mighty blazing stars--point, swing, and drive, rode herd on the milky way. And that seemed no more than cow-boys driving stock. Would G.o.d turn His head to see His star herds pa.s.s, or notice our earth like some lame calf halting in the rear?

And what am I, then?

That was my great lesson, more gain to me than peace and wealth of mind, for I was humbled to the dust of earth, below that dust of stars. So as a very humble thing, not worth praying for, at least I could be master of myself. I rode no more for wages, but cut out my ponies from the Lightning herd, mounted my stud horse William, told the boys good-by at Montecello, and then rode slowly north into the British possessions. So I come at last to this place, an old abandoned ranch. There's none so poor in dollars as to envy ragged Jesse, or rich enough to want to rob my home. They say there's hidden wealth whar the rainbow goes to earth--that's whar I live.

PART II

CHAPTER I

TWO s.h.i.+PS AT ANCHOR

_Kate's Narrative_

My horse was hungry, and wanted to get back to the ranch. I was hungry too, but dared not go. I had left my husband lying drunk on the kitchen floor, and when he woke up it would be worse than that.

For miles I had followed the edge of the bench lands, searching for the place, for the right place, some point where the rocks went sheer, twelve hundred feet into the river. There must be nothing to break the fall, no risk of being alive, of being taken back there, of seeing him again. But the edge was never sheer, and perhaps after all, the place by the Soda Spring was best. There the trail from the ranch goes at a sharp turn, over the edge of the cliffs and down to the ferry. Beyond there are three great bull pines on a headland, and the cliff is sheer for at least five hundred feet. That should be far enough.

I let my horse have a drink at the spring, then we went slowly on over the soundless carpet of pine needles. I would leave my horse at the pines.

Somebody was there. Four laden pack-ponies stood in the shade of the trees, switching their tails to drive away the flies. A fifth, a buckskin mare, unloaded, with a bandaged leg, stood in the sunlight.

Behind the nearest tree a man was speaking. I reined my horse. "Now you, Jones," he was saying to the injured beast, "you take yo'self too serious. You ain't goin' to Heaven? No! Then why pack yo' bag? Why fuss?"

I had some silly idea that the man, if he discovered me, would know what business brought me to this headland. I held my breath.

"And since you left yo' parasol to home, Jones, come in under out of the sun. Come on, you sun-struck orphan."

His slow, delicious, Texan drawl made me smile. I did not want to smile.

The mare, a very picture of misery, lifted her bandaged, frightfully swollen leg, and hobbled into the shade. I did not want to laugh, but why was she called Jones? She looked just like a Jones.

"The inquirin' mind," said the man behind the tree, "has gawn surely astray from business, or you'd have know'd that rattlers smells of snake. Then I asks--why paw?"

His voice had so curious a timbre of aching sympathy. He actually began to argue with the mare. "I've sucked out the pizen, Jones, hacked it out with my jack-knife, blowed it out with powder, packed yo' pastern with clay--best kind of clay--millionaires cayn't buy it. And I've took off your cargo. Now what more kin I do? Feedin' bottle's to home, and we're out of cough mixture. Why, what on airth--"

The mare, with her legs all astraddle, snorted in his face.

"Sugar is it? Why didn't ye say so befo'?"

Jones turned her good eye on the man as though she had just discovered his existence, hobbled briskly after him while he dug in his kitchen boxes, made first grab at the sugar bag, and got her face slapped. The man, always with his eye upon the mare, returned to his place, and sat on his heel as before. "Three lumps," he said, holding them one by one to be s.n.a.t.c.hed. "You're acting sort of convalescent, Jones. No more sugar. And don't be a hawg!"

The mare was kissing his face.

"Back of all! Back water! Thar now, thank the lady behind me!"

And I had imagined my presence still unknown.

"How on earth," I gasped, "did you know I was here?"

The man's eyes were still intent upon the wounded mare. "Wall, Mrs.

Trevor," he drawled.

"You know my name? Your back has been turned the whole time! You've never seen me in your life--at least I've never seen you!"

"That's so," he answered thoughtfully. "I don't need tellin' the sound of that colt yo' husband bought from me. As to the squeak of a lady's pigskin saddle, thar ain't no other lady rider short of a hundred and eighty-three and a half miles."

What manner of man could this be? My colt was drawing toward him all the time as though a magnet pulled.

"This Jones," the man went on, "bin bit by a snake, is afraid she'll be wafted on high, so my eyes is sort of engaged in holding her down while she swells. She kicked me hearty, though, and loading sugar's no symptom of pa.s.sing away, so on the whole I hope she'll worry along while I cook dinner."

He stood facing me, the bag still in his hand, and my colt asking pointedly for sugar. Very tall, gaunt, deeply tanned, perhaps twenty-five years of age, he seemed to me immeasurably old, so deeply lined was his face. And yet it was the face of one at peace. Purity of life, quaint humor, instant sympathy, may perhaps have given him that wonderful charm of manner which visibly attracted animals, which certainly compelled me as I accepted his invitation to dinner. I had been away since daybreak, and now the sun was entering the west. As to my purpose, that I felt could wait.

So I sat under the pines, pretending to nurse Jones while the shadows lengthened over the tawny gra.s.s, and orange needles flecked fields of rock, out to the edge of the headland.

The man unsaddled my horse, unloaded his ponies, fetched water from the spring of natural Apollinaris, but when, coming back, he found me lighting a fire, he begged me to desist, to rest while he made dinner.

And I was glad to rest, thinking about the peace beyond the edge of the headland. Yet it was interesting to see how a man keeps house in the wilderness, and how different are his ways from those of a woman. No housewife could have been more daintily clean, or shown a swifter skill, or half the silent ease with which this woodsman made the table-ware for one, enough to serve two people. But a woman would not clean a frying-pan by burning it and throwing on cold water. He sprinkled flour on a ground sheet, and made dough without wetting the canvas. Would I like bread, or slapjacks, or a pie? He made a loaf of bread, in a frying pan set on edge among glowing coals, and, wondering how a pie could possibly happen without the a.s.sistance of an oven, I forgot all about that cliff.